TURAS Integrated Transition Strategy: Deliverable 7.2 of the TURAS Project

Transition towards more resilient and sustainable urban futures can only be successful as an integrated undertaking. Within the scope of TURAS, Work Package (WP) 7 aims to reframe and combine local research undertaken in WP 1-6 towards knowledge that is applicable outside the original geographical locations and beyond the duration of the original research project. WP7 activities are thus focused on the development of “Integrated Transition Strategies” (ITS), which reorganize and structure the output of TURAS research into larger transferable entities while developing and applying a guiding conceptual framework. This Integrated Transition Framework draws on a diverse set of conceptual foundations in resilience and transition management research, with strategic spatial planning (SSP) being its main frame of reference. Termed “Integrated Transition Strategy” (ITS) or “4Corner”- Framework, it is oriented along the four basic steps of SSP and consists of four main modules defined as System or “creating systemic knowledge”, Vision or “developing shared visions”, Strategy or “developing adaptive strategies” and Project or “implementing pilot projects”.

It integrates the descriptive analytical concept of resilience with the normative concept of sustainability and has been developed to inform a planning approach that encourages transition. As a first step towards integration, WP7 developed and applied a methodology that would allow for a translation of research on and for specific locations to applicable products for generic locations. During the course of WP7 activities, separable units of research activities (called “Activity Units” or ACUs) were first identified by the academic partners and then re- packaged and structured according pre-defined categories informed by the 4Corner framework and provided by WP7.

The resulting “Catalogue” of ACUs aimed at providing an overview of implementable TURAS output. Each ACU contains information related to the underlying challenging urban situation addressed by the activity, the visions it corresponded to, needed resources, details on implementation and the main contact person. In the long run, WP7 aims to supplement this basic information with additional content such as expected resilience trade-offs and long term sustainability impacts. Parallel to the translation of specific research outcomes into generalized, transferrable and cross-locational content, a second strand of WP7 activities sought to facilitate the generation of localized strategies that would integrate, apply and test TURAS output. To this aim, the Integrated Transition Strategy (ITS) framework was used as a tool to guide (TURAS) cities through a process of developing their own localized transition strategy, referred to as City Integrated Transition Strategy (City ITS). The creation of individual City ITS’s was employed in order to identify connections and establish generic links between a complex set of urban challenges and available Activity Units (ACUs) for any given city. At the same time, City ITS Development also presented an intermediate step towards the development of individual city narratives that serve to capture and disseminate local transition experiences and tacit process knowledge generated in TURAS locations.

As a next step, relationships between urban challenges and Activity Units will need to be strengthened and related to a generic approach that can be easily understood, interpreted and applied by cities outside and beyond TURAS. WP7 thus suggests the development of integrated topical strategies, (so-called “Starter Projects”) that combine relevant applicable ACUs within the 4C framework.

Ultimately, combining an easily accessible choice of generic but thematically integrated transition strategies with individual localized transition narratives presents a new and distinctive approach to transition knowledge management that will be further developed and elaborated in collaboration with local TURAS partners in the course of upcoming WP7 activities.

For additional information on the TURAS project see here, or email marcus.collier@tcd.ie.